[cencio]

---

[mike777]

I would back up and ask
1. What is 2D?
2. What is x?
3. What is 3s?
That may help explain what is 3S..
😊

If we walk through this
If 2D shows hearts and spades and
X shows decent hand and Diamonds
3S may be asking do you have stoppers for No trump in the majors?

A pretty complicated auction for novice level players I would say.

[jillybean]

The 3♠ bid is confusing to say the least.

[jdiana]

I wouldn't have known what to make of that bid but I probably would have bid 3NT on general principles.

Of course, if you were playing with robots, you could hover over the bid to get an explanation; if you were playing with a human being, you could just ask him after the fact what he meant. Either way, I'd be interested to know what was intended.

[mycroft]

I would guess with a North American pickup what Mike777 did: "good hand with diamonds, I don't have the major stoppers, where should we play?"

But if there is an agreement about the double, we need to know what it is. Without one, it's a guess (and "double of artificial bids show the suit" is a pretty standard meta-agreement).

[pescetom]

mycroft, on 2025-January-01, 13:46, said:

I would guess with a North American pickup what Mike777 did: "good hand with diamonds, I don't have the major stoppers, where should we play?"

I would guess that partner doesn't know what he is doing (he already knows my major honours run into West).
I could understand a second double (and would be happy to pass).

[johnu]

mike777, on 2025-January-01, 08:27, said:

I would back up and ask
1. What is 2D?

Another reminder to not describe alerts with a convention name. Alerter should explain, "Majors, 5-4 or better", or whatever their agreement actually is.

[smerriman]

mycroft, on 2025-January-01, 13:46, said:

Without one, it's a guess (and "double of artificial bids show the suit" is a pretty standard meta-agreement).

Agree it's a guess, though I would have expected the other meta-agreement of "doubles of two suited bids show values and the ability to penalise at least one of those suits".

[mycroft]

Definitely arguable, in which case I would expect 3♠ to be "clearly hearts aren't the suit I can penalize, it was spades, can you do something here?"

And while Kxxx is rough, it is safe from at least the opening lead, and the spades should run, and we have the points for game, so partner has more than ♠KJxx; so I guess I'm committed?

And pescetom, partner has decided to show a better than just double hand that can't defend 3♥ (for enough, at least). As you say, he knows where the major cards are. But he also knows that declarer's stoppers will work (at least on the opening lead) and why shouldn't he expect to run 8 or 9 more tricks?

With a stronger hand than OP, of course. But not necessarily much stronger, eh? (and I would guess that declarer in 3NT even with OP's hand has 2 stoppers - who's leading the ♥A or Q?)